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Tim's hopes for Zeki

Zeki Fryers made his first appearance in Tottenham Hotspur colours on Tuesday in the Development Squad’s 4-0 win over Charlton, with Tim Sherwood watching from the sidelines.

Zeki joined the Club last week from Standard Liege, who he signed for in the summer after his contract with Manchester United had expired.

The defender spent time with our Development Squad prior to making the move to Belgium and Tim hopes we can realise the player’s potential after a change of circumstances at Standard afforded us the opportunity to sign the 19-year-old at the second time of asking.

Our Head of Football Development said: "Zeki is one of a number of young players who we have taken an interest in, who play for the reserve teams of different clubs.

"We had the opportunity to bring him in and take a look at him in the summer. We took a mixture of youth and development players to Portugal and took him out with us, basically gave him a trial. We liked what we saw, we knew there was something there.

"He showed potential, a lot of tools there that could make him a player. We played a couple of friendlies and he was definitely of interest to us.

“We were unable to agree a deal on the terms Manchester United were asking and he ended up signing for Standard Liege.

“Our scouts watched him on a couple of occasions. Standard Liege changed their manager in November and the new manager by all accounts didn't fancy him and he then became a little disillusioned and homesick.

"The next thing we knew his representatives called us, along with, as I understand, a number of other clubs, to see if there was any interest in bringing him back.

"Zeki is fully aware that he's a long way away from being ready for Tottenham Hotspur's first team. The plan is for him to come in and work hard with the development squad to get to a level - no guarantees - where he could perhaps play for our first team."